I am disgusted.  Appalled.  Sick to my stomach.  After years of hearing the rants against Democrats.  The years of hearing about liberals bringing this country to ruin.  Clinton was the ammoral outrage.  The lightening rod for all that was wrong in our world.

Now we discover that Representative Foley is not just having sex on the side.  He is a pedophile.  A homosexual pedophile.  He uses his position of power to engage in sexual acts with minor boys.  Representative Foley is a Republican.   The party that claims to have the last say on family values.  I know Republicans who express shock when they discover a person who loves their children is a Democrat or a liberal.  Really.   I have had people express shock and dismay when they discovered that I am a Democrat.  How can that be?  I seem soooo nice and balanced.  Not at all satanic and evil.  Funny how that works.

I don’t particularly care what Representative Foley does in his free time.  It is, after all, his free time.  He is an adult.  If he is indeed a homosexual, I’m sorry he feels the need to cover it up so completely.  Perhaps if he told himself and everyone else the truth about who he is, he wouldn’t be in this place right now.  Honesty really is the best policy.  Perhaps if we all starting telling the truth to ourselves about who people are in terms of their sexuality, we would be able to protect our children from these predators more easily.  There might be fewer of them and there would be fewer dark corners for them to hide in.  There is nothing frightening or evil about a person’s sexuality.  It just is.  All we are required to do is love them, just as we love alcoholics, gluttons, thieves, rock stars, athletes, and doctors.

The hue and cry over Representative Foley’s reprehensible acts of pederasty have left me somewhat unimpressed.  I well remember the thunderous imprecations from the pulpits of Christendom over President Clinton’s immoral turpitude with Monica Lewinsky.  Ten years later, when actual crimes have been committed, the thunder is but a tinny roll on a cheap dime store drum calling for mercy and grace.  This from the same pulpits which demand and still demand President Clinton’s head on a platter.

I can think of several ancient cliches which fit this situation … about shoes fitting, lying in beds of one’s own making and the like.  But I think the cliche which Republicans and Christian Republicans ought to explore is:  What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.  Morality is morality no matter which political party one is in.  Whatever yardstick one uses one must use that yardstick for all parties regardless.  If we are not willing to do that, then God help us.